(AP) TEMECULA, Calif. — Authorities say a naked 12-year-old girl was discovered eating food out of trash cans in Temecula and her mother has been arrested on suspicion of child endangerment.

Riverside County sheriff's officials say when police responded to a 911 call Thursday, they found the girl in a car where she was allegedly left by her 40-year-old mother, who was later arrested. ::snipping2::The girl was found in a BMW with tinted windows around the corner from the Prado's home. ::snipping2::The girl is in protective custody and was given medical care at a nearby hospital for unspecified ailments.

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A Temecula teacher’s assistant is in custody on suspicion of child cruelty after witnesses reported seeing her 12-year-old daughter walking naked through a residential neighborhood and eating out of trash cans.

Police arrested Tracy Betts shortly after officers, acting on witness tips, searched for the girl Thursday and found her without clothes and sitting in a car parked near Vail Elementary school.

Once they discovered who the girl’s mother was and where she worked, police went to the Vail campus and took Betts into custody. ::snipping2::

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A naked 12-year-old girl seen eating out of trash cans on a Temecula street was being held by her mother in a car while she worked at a nearby elementary school, residents of the neighborhood said Friday, citing Riverside County Sheriff’s deputies.Tracy Lynn Betts, 40, a teaching assistant at Vail Elementary, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of felony child endangerment after people who spotted the unidentified girl called 911. ::snipping2::Betts was arrested at the school at 2:20 p.m. Thursday and booked into the Southwest Detention Center in French Valley about 10 p.m. She was released Friday after posting $15,000 bail, online booking records show.

Phone messages left for Betts and her husband Friday afternoon were not immediately returned. No one answered the door at their home in the 40900 block of Engelmann Oak Street in Murrieta on Friday evening. The house is in a quiet neighborhood of single-family homes east of Interstate 15. ::snipping2::

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The mother of a 12-year-old girl found walking naked through a neighborhood and eating out of trash cans faces possible endangerment charges. ::snipping2::Police arrested the girl's mother, Tracy Betts, shortly after officers, acting on witness tips, searched for the girl Thursday and found her without clothes and sitting in a car parked near Vail Elementary school.

Betts was arrested Friday but released on $15,000 bail. She is expected to appear in court in the coming days. Her daughter is in protective custody. ::snipping2::

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" Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Moynihan

The mother of a 12-year-old girl found walking naked through a neighborhood and eating out of trash cans faces possible endangerment charges. ::snipping2::Police arrested the girl's mother, Tracy Betts, shortly after officers, acting on witness tips, searched for the girl Thursday and found her without clothes and sitting in a car parked near Vail Elementary school.

Betts was arrested Friday but released on $15,000 bail. She is expected to appear in court in the coming days. Her daughter is in protective custody. ::snipping2::

Oh for the love of all this is holy! What are these people thinking? It angers me so much what reckless abandonment these people display.

The mother of a 12-year-old girl found walking naked through a neighborhood and eating out of trash cans faces possible endangerment charges. ::snipping2::Police arrested the girl's mother, Tracy Betts, shortly after officers, acting on witness tips, searched for the girl Thursday and found her without clothes and sitting in a car parked near Vail Elementary school.

Betts was arrested Friday but released on $15,000 bail. She is expected to appear in court in the coming days. Her daughter is in protective custody. ::snipping2::

Oh for the love of all this is holy! What are these people thinking? It angers me so much what reckless abandonment these people display.

It's just crazy, isn't it?

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" Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Moynihan

A Temecula teaching assistant accused of leaving her naked 12-year-old daughter to wait in a parked car while she worked is on paid administrative leave, school officials said Tuesday.

Tracy Lynn Betts, 40, of Murrieta, was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment last week after residents of a neighborhood near the school where Betts worked reported seeing a young girl without clothes wandering the street and eating food from trash cans, Riverside County sheriff’s officials said. Neighbors on Avenida de Calazada said last week that the girl was using a car floor mat to cover herself while she rooted through trash cans.Sheriff’s Sgt. Andy Woods said Tuesday that Betts had left the child in the car before. He said it appears Betts took away her daughter’s clothes to prevent her from leaving the vehicle, which the girl had done in the past. Woods said Betts worked three- or four-hour days at Vail Elementary School.

The child attends school but classes apparently were not in session Thursday, he said.

It was unclear why Betts would leave her daughter in the car, authorities said.

“It was her version of day care,” Sgt. Kevin McDonald said.

Betts had worked as a Vail teaching assistant since 2005, said Melanie Norton, spokeswoman for the Temecula Valley Unified School District. If charges are filed, Betts would be placed on unpaid leave, Norton said.

John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney’s office, said prosecutors are reviewing the case and charges have not been filed. ::snipping2::Woods said Betts had been the girl’s foster mother.

McDonald said there were no signs of other mistreatment by Betts. Though the child was eating out of trashcans, Betts had not been starving the girl, he said.

The child had run away from home in the past, police said.

Murrieta police Sgt. Dave Baca said the girl’s parents reported her missing Dec. 19. She slipped out of the house during the night and was found wandering the next day in Murrieta wearing her pajamas, he said.

A 12-year-old girl who was reportedly spotted naked wandering through a neighborhood where her mother works at a Temecula school is likely the same girl who went missing from her Murrieta home in December, Patch has learned. ::snipping2::In December, a 12-year-old girl, whose father identified himself as Carl Betts, was reported missing from her Murrieta home but after a search, she was found at a tailor shop from where she had called home.

Police went to the business off California Oaks Road and Jackson Avenue, and quickly found the girl.

Carl Betts, the girl's father, arrived minutes after the police. Betts held his daughter as she sobbed, "I just want to go home, daddy." ::snipping2::Both Tracy L. Betts and Carl Betts have the same address on Engelmann Oak Street in Murrieta.

The number listed for Tracy Betts is the same number provided Patch in December as the one the girl dialed when she asked to use the tailor's phone.

And a foreclosure case filed in civil court in January 2011 names both Carl and Tracy Betts as defendants in the case filed by a credit union.*************************************http://laist.com/2012/02/19/12-year-old_girl_who_was_found_eati.php12-Year-Old Girl Who Was Found Naked and Eating Out of a Dumpster Had Gone Missing in December ::snipping2::Temecula Patch has also linked Betts to the case of a 12-year-old girl who went missing overnight back in December. (Court documents show Tracy Betts owns a home with Carl Betts, who picked the girl up in December. The number listed for Tracy is the same number the girl called when she tried to return home.)

It appeared at the time that she ran away from home, and later on she called home and police retrieved her. Here's a passage from a Murrieta Patch article about how she was discovered after being reported missing:

Brian Rezaie, who runs Pompe Tailoring, the shop the girl called home from, said she was "shivering and shaking" when she asked to use the phone. "She was crying, and it seemed like she had a problem," Rezaie said. "She was saying, 'I'm in the shopping center, I need a ride and someone has to come pick me up.'" "She just seemed so hopeless," Rezaie said. ::snipping2::

« Last Edit: February 26, 2012, 12:04:01 PM by MuffyBee »

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" Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Moynihan

Oh MuffyB, I have an uneasy feeling there is more to this story than we know at this point. If her foster mom thinks keeping a naked child in a car is day care, there are more serious issues within this home. Obviously, she has not been taught about her little body either. Thank goodness some pedo didn't find her first.

Oh MuffyB, I have an uneasy feeling there is more to this story than we know at this point. If her foster mom thinks keeping a naked child in a car is day care, there are more serious issues within this home. Obviously, she has not been taught about her little body either. Thank goodness some pedo didn't find her first.

BBM

Absolutely agree with you, there are more serious issues within this home. And she could have fallen into the wrong hands!

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" Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Moynihan